In some welding operations, such as MIG welding, a wire coil is employed to provide a continuous feed of welding wire (electrode) to the welding gun. In these applications, the welding wire is often stored in a large coil configuration, in which the coil of wire is placed in a box or a container having a core section around which the wire is coiled. The core section is employed to maintain coil stability as the wire is pulled out of the box during the welding operation.
However, there are problems associated with this configuration. First, as the wire is pulled from the container the loop diameter of the wire becomes smaller (due to the pulling tension on the wire). Because of this, the wire falls between a gap between the core section and the wire coil, and can fall as far as the bottom of the container. This falling of the wire greatly increases the friction between the wire and the core section, thus increasing the friction force and required feed force to draw the wire out of the container. The gap is created by the use of a core section having a diameter smaller than that of the inner diameter of the wire coil, which is needed to allow the core section to be easily placed in the center of the wire coil. Secondly, the core section can move and/or be tilted during the wire payout which causes similar problems which increase the required feed force. For example, the wire can fall under the core section or be bound by the tilted core section.
Therefore, there is a need for a payoff core configuration which is capable of addressing the above problems.